I always have fun writing the performances for the Appeal Stage. It sometimes can be hard to come up with something original, but in the end it’s always an enjoyable experience. Having such a wide cast of characters competing here served to increase the enjoyment I had. Putting Ash in a situation like this was especially fun. Dashilisk was practically made to do that performance. It was also great to work with Dawn and May as well. I did my best to replicate their style as well as possible. Of course, the important part of this episode wasn’t the performances, it was Brenda’s story. I specifically framed it to have Will go immediately before Brenda and put on a show that could only be achieved with the utmost practice. This served to up the stakes for Brenda to show what she’s managed to learn while practicing. Also of note is the flashbacks to Brenda’s first ever training session. I did want to dedicate an entire episode to her training, but this seemed like a much more economic and meaningful way of doing things. I designed Brenda’s performance to be something that would have ended in disaster had she never tried it before in order to further emphasize how important this training was.

The Wallace Cup has finally begun! Ash, May, Dawn, Will, Jessie, and, most importantly, Brenda are all ready to compete and do there best. It’s time to find out if Dawn’s help with training was enough for Brenda.

Also, the Tenno Region page has received a massive update. It now provides a list of every location present in Luna and Terra Versions, as well as a description of each location, and a list of wild Pokémon that can be found there. Make sure to check it out.

The real purpose of this episode was to give some much needed character to both Brenda and Will. Up until this point, I’ve been a little disappointed with my writing for them, as both were just kind of there, but it didn’t mean much. Also, there wasn’t really much substance between their rivalry. This episode gave us the first major display of emotion on both of their parts, intensified their rivalry, and set up future story arcs for them all at the same time. In case you didn’t notice though, I have been leading up to this episode. Brenda has always seemed to like to wing things, just jumping into them without any practice, and she normally does pretty well. This was made even more extreme in the episode Pedal to the Medal, where she outright refused to practice. Conversely, Jessie spent that entire episode practicing, setting her up for her victory in this episode.

I will admit that it was a bit of a mistake to have Helioptile prominently featured two episodes in a row. I had planned this episode first, and then I when I was planning the episode before it I decided that Will’s newest Pokémon should be a Light-Type. I didn’t want to use any of the Light-Types already made for Cosmic Quest, as they’ve been a bit over-used, and I didn’t want to introduce a new one yet. Then I started thinking about old Pokémon that became Light-Types. Helioptile came straight to mind and I thought it was a perfect fit. I figured I could justify it by having Will have caught it nearby, as in the location of the following episode, and it kind of worked, but I wouldn’t say it was perfect. As far as this episode itself went, I knew that I wanted it to show off the sun aspect of Turcell/Turtsol, and I thought it would be fun to pair it up with Helioptile and Helioisk, the other solar powered Pokémon. One ironic point was that my original idea was to have Ash and Turcell try to teach Helioisk how to use Sunny Day, Turcell wasn’t going to learn it all. Then I realized that Helioptile and Helioisk can’t learn Sunny Day, not even through TMs. (Which is completely ridiculuous if you ask me, as they’re more associated with the sun than almost any other Pokémon that can learn Sunny Day. To make matters worse, they don’t even learn Solar Beam through TM. Being solar powered Pokémon, Solar Beam is like the definition of them, and should be a signature move of theirs. Very silly and senseless move on Game Freak’s part.) I considered just not worrying about it and using the excuse that in Luna, Terra, and Sol Version they can learn Sunny Day, but decided that people who don’t visit this website might think that I hadn’t done my research. So in the end, Turtsol got two new moves with its evolution instead of one.

Obviously the main point of this episode was to introduce Brenda to concept of the Double Performance, but it also served as a way to bring Will back into to the fold, who hasn’t appeared since his debut appearance back during Brenda’s first contest. This episode also continued the theme of having Brenda be a seeming prodigy at contests, Double Performances included. In all honesty, I don’t have much else to say about the episode, so I’ll just make this a short one.

A chance encounter with Brenda’s fellow Pokémon Coordinator Will proves to be a learning experience for her when he tells her about Double Performances, the type of performance that will be required at her next Pokémon Contest. Now Brenda must work to master this new style of battle.

Also, the Movedex has been updated and Will has been added to the Character Guide. And, if you haven’t seen it yet, make sure to read the Exclusive Special Episode: The Cosmic Chronicles.